The cover for Billy Joel’s new single, “Turn the Lights Back On.”

As someone who prefers classic rock, there’s always this fear that an artist from yesteryear can return and make their catalog seem…off.   The sounds of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s are not easy to replicate. Those eras of music sound like you can feel each instrument and voice colliding together in harmony – the producer just lets the band play and doesn’t try dictate their sound and energy. So as someone who has always loved Billy Joel, I approached his new single, Turn the Lights Back On, with major trepidation.

I’ve always loved the Piano Man: from listening to him in the car with Mom and Dad on long drives and not realizing that the same guy sang both Piano Man and It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me, to buying my first ever vinyl record because of how much I loved Glass Houses.  

But he stopped making new music in the early ‘90s, believing that he had run out of things to say.  And as a fan, I couldn’t help but agree.  Those late ‘80s albums are an exhausting stretch to listen to.  Believe me when I say Modern Woman’s heavy use of synth and screams do not age as well as Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.

I expected a highly produced, pop friendly single when sitting down to finally listen to this thing.  Instead, I heard something very different.  Turn the Lights Back On is a deceptively simple song.  You really only hear three things on the official recording: a piano, drums and Joel’s voice.  Unlike other rock bands like the Rolling Stones – whose newest single, Anger, tried to hide the fact Mick and company are pushing 80 – Joel lets himself sound older on this track.  But that’s to his benefit. 

Turn the Lights Back On is about finding one’s passion once more.  The opening lyric comes right as you press play: “Please open the door / Nothing is different, we’ve been here before.”  It’s a lyric that sticks with you, with Billy Joel’s voice seemingly weary, hesitant to even be behind the piano.  It’s almost as if he has to convince himself that he’s ready to record again.

It’s a feeling we’ve all felt: leaving a place we felt comfortable with and returning, afraid that our home is gone, that there is no place to relax and feel settled.  It’s a feeling I’ve had as I continue to work on my degree and try to find a place – a profession – to call home. It’s why a line like, “I’m late, but I’m here right now / Though I used to be romantic, I forgot somehow,” hits hard for me.  We can lose the person we should be easily, but that doesn’t mean they’re lost forever.

I expected to hate this “last” song of Joel’s because it’s very hard for someone to come back after 17 years and still feel the same.  But Turn the Lights Back On works because of that – that absence of home and who you were drips off of every line and every note coming from Joel’s piano.  Instead of it leaning into the Billy Joel of the ‘80s, the rock star who dates supermodels and flips over pianos in the Soviet Union, it returns to his ‘70s roots – of some schmuck who has some thoughts and wants to share them with ironic sincerity. 

It captures a feeling I think all of us have felt.  And judging by Joel’s reaction at the Grammys and the song debuting on the Hot 100 at 67 this month, I think people are ready to return to the sincerity and longing of Billy Joel.  

But for me, at least? It’s just nice to have some music that feels like home after all this time.